The Three Rabbis

This is a fantastic section from the book I'm reading right now by Orson Scott Card, "Speaker For The Dead". It is an epigraph at the beginning of one of the later chapters, a writing by a Christian leader in the far-future science fiction setting Mr. Card has dreamed up. I thought it was rather poignant, so I decided to share it. 

“A Great Rabbi stands, teaching in the marketplace. It happens that a husband finds proof that morning of his wife's adultery, and a mob carries her to the marketplace to stone her to death.

There is a familiar version of this story, but a friend of mine - a Speaker for the Dead - has told me of two other Rabbis that faced the same situation. Those are the ones I'm going to tell you.

The Rabbi walks forward and stands beside the woman. Out of respect for him the mob forbears and waits with the stones heavy in their hands. 'Is there any man here,' he says to them, 'who has not desired another man's wife, another woman's husband?'
They murmur and say, 'We all know the desire, but Rabbi, none of us has acted on it.'

The Rabbi says, 'Then kneel down and give thanks that God has made you strong.' He takes the woman by the hand and leads her out of the market. Just before he lets her go, he whispers to her, 'Tell the Lord Magistrate who saved his mistress, then he'll know I am his loyal servant.'

So the woman lives because the community is too corrupt to protect itself from disorder.

Another Rabbi. Another city. He goes to her and stops the mob as in the other story and says, 'Which of you is without sin? Let him cast the first stone.'

The people are abashed, and they forget their unity of purpose in the memory of their own individual sins. ‘Someday,’ they think, ‘I may be like this woman. And I’ll hope for forgiveness and another chance. I should treat her as I wish to be treated.’

As they opened their hands and let their stones fall to the ground, the Rabbi picks up one of the fallen stones, lifts it high over the woman’s head and throws it straight down with all his might. It crushes her skull and dashes her brain among the cobblestones. ‘Nor am I without sins,’ he says to the people, ‘but if we allow only perfect people to enforce the law, the law will soon be dead – and our city with it.’

So the woman died because her community was too rigid to endure her deviance.

The famous version of this story is noteworthy because it is so startlingly rare in our experience. Most communities lurch between decay and rigor mortis and when they veer too far they die. Only one Rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation.

So of course, we killed him."

My Writing Process

I want to be a writer. That is what I'm jumping for. And I don't want to be a journalist, I don't want to be a corporate writer, I don't even want to be a blogger, despite what I've written on here or my other blog. I want to be a storyteller. And I don't care if that's unrealistic--that's what I want to do, and that's what God has placed in my heart to do.

I've written and rewritten many stories, and yet never actually finished anything major. As of now, I have written many short stories, and one novella, which I am very proud of, but I have never finished a novel. I've written the first part of a novel--60,000 words of three parallel storylines that come to satisfying conclusions, but only if you have another 60k or 100k words to back it up--and the first few chapters of dozens of novels, but I've had a problem with finishing things. With the book I'm on right now, To Look Skyward, I plan to change that. It's going to be a massive undertaking. I'm already 50,000 words in, having finished NaNoWriMo with it, and I have barely even scratched the surface of the story. But I'll do it, and I'll revise it until it's a great story, and then I'll submit it. And then I'll start a new book. Because that's the life I've chosen for myself.

But enough about that. Let's talk about my writing process. It's changed considerably over the years I've been writing, and I continue to learn new things about how my brain works, and how I can best equip my mind to make quality stories. NaNoWriMo, especially, taught me many things about how I write.

I’ve been told there is a sliding scale to being a writer—on one end you have the discovery writer, who makes it up as they go, does what the story demands, what the characters want, rather than sticking to an outline. They do multiple drafts of one book, and some say their first draft is really just an incredibly extensive outline. On the other end you have the outliner—the guy who details what’s going to happen in every chapter, step by step, before he even puts his hand to the keys. The story doesn’t get away from him, he knows where he’s going from start to finish. And though something major may change during the course of the book, he usually has a very firm ending already in mind when he starts writing.

I’m somewhere in the middle between those two extremes, as most people are. I tend to spend a lot of time thinking about a book, envisioning key scenes and characters, listening to a specific film score I pick out for the story, helping me see certain events and set them to music in my head. I have a basic idea of what the story is going to be about, who is going to be major players, and what the ending is going to look like.

Then I write—I start with the first chapter and go. Beginnings are usually easy—since I’ve been thinking about this story for a while now, the beginning and the ending are usually firm in my mind, as well as a few key scenes that I want to happen in the middle. After that first chapter, though, I take another step back.

And then I outline the second chapter all the way through, figuring out what will be the goal, conflict, and outcome of each scene, trying to end with a satisfying resolution for that mini-arc of story. Then I write that out all the way to the end of the chapter.

But, I really don’t end up sticking to the outline very much. I’m probably more of a discovery writer than an outliner in a scene by scene basis. I let things fall where they may, writing myself into the story and the characters and letting them take it where they want it to. I make up characters on the fly when I need a specific person to be there, I change key events to make a better flow. And I usually end up changing the climax I had in mind considerably. Though I may plan out when a chapter ends, it almost always turns out to end sooner than I thought. I tend to end chapters when I feel the climax has come, a satisfying resolution has been accomplished. And I love to end a chapter (and a scene) on a great line that sets the tone and leaves you with a sense of completion, yet looking towards the future.

With To Look Skyward, my standard process has stayed mostly the same, though I did outline much more heavily than I ever have before. During the actual writing, I've realized dozens of things that have changed the outline and made it better, and I'll realize dozen more things as I continue to churn out the story. And though I have a basic idea of what my ending will be, and where I want to end up, the second half of TLS is much less defined than the first half. If I reach the halfway point and still don't quite know where I want the last half to go, I'll sit down with a few friends and brainstorm some ideas based on what I already have. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I still have a long way to go.

One of the things that I learned during NaNoWriMo that I'll add--I have to edit. Some writers talk about turning off their internal editor and just writing without any restraints, but I just cannot work that way. I am constantly checking and rechecking my writing as I go, making sure that the scene is cohesive and it's headed in the right direction, the continuity is consistent, and the wording is how I'd like it to be. Not to the point that it takes me forever to write something (I write fairly quickly anyway), but enough to make the completed first draft of a scene of mine pretty workable by the time I'm through.

One of the main things that went wrong during NaNoWriMo for me was when I got behind. I knew I couldn't do my normal checking and rechecking of the scene, and so I was forced to barrel onward when I knew the writing I was leaving behind wasn't good. It frustrated me so much. I ended up finishing a chapter just to finish it, and sent my character in a completely random direction simply because I had no idea what to do next. Once NaNoWriMo was over, I took a step back, deleted all of the text after the point I had gotten stuck, and tried again. I was so much more satisfied with the new version of the chapter than the old, because I got to take some time to truly think about the scene and what it needed, rather than writing it simply to be writing.

For some people, that works, and they could write a bunch of scenes that they know they're going to throw away completely or rewrite the heck out of, and they can do a dozen drafts, but I just don't work like that. I like to be neater than that, and have my first drafts make as much cohesive sense as possible.

To close this slightly rambly entry, I'd like to talk about one of my favorite podcasts, Writing Excuses, with some of my favorite authors--Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, and Mary Robinette-Kowal. They are on their tenth season, and are the main reason I know how to write a story. Their tips and tricks have been so unbelievably helpful to me, and have helped me shape my writing process, and now, for their tenth season, they are structuring the entire year of podcasts as a master class! And that has me super excited, because it means I get to learn more about the art of writing in a way that'll be super informative (not that it hasn't already been informative...)! So, if you're at all interested in writing science fiction, fantasy, horror, or any other kind of genre fiction, check out Writing Excuses, and get in on this awesome master class thing they're doing. You won't regret it.

That's all from the guy who likes to fancy himself a storyteller.

I Won #NaNoWriMo

Hey guys, guess what? I won National Novel Writing Month!

Yes, I wrote 50,000 words in the month of November. It was both easier and harder than I thought it would be, in different ways. It was easy to write that much, because I write pretty fast anyway, and had already outlined the story extensively, but it was hard to write that much without editing. I ended up getting to a point where I knew I would have to go back and change major plot things, but I had to keep going, because I was behind. 

I learned a lot about my process during the month--namely that I can't not edit while writing. I can't turn off my internal editor, and that's not a bad thing. It makes my prose pretty workable by the time I get done with a chapter, but it also makes writing a chapter take a little longer. When I was completely focused on writing during November, that wasn't that big of a deal, and I could more or less churn out a chapter every three to five days or so. But now that I have to work on other things, such as my music, college preparation, and other projects, I'm not going to be able to finish chapters as frequently. But that's okay. It works.

As people have been reading along online and critiquing To Look Skyward, I've caught a lot of things that I need to fix. Unfortunately, I need to keep this book plodding slowly forward, so I don't get stuck in an eternal rewrite. That means I'm going to have to ignore the glaring mistakes and focus on making the next parts of the book better. I can come back and fix everything in a second draft. So, off I go! Wish me luck. 50,000 words down, lots more to go. This is definitely going to be a thick book. But it is an epic fantasy... So there's that.

NaNoWriMo Week #4

This is it. Crunch time. I have eight days to get fifteen thousand words in. I did about three thousand today, and so I'll have to do about two thousand a day to get finished on time. Unfortunately, my two best friends ar going to be in town, so distractions will be many. BUT I WILL OVERCOME!

Wish me luck.

NaNoWriMo Weeks #2 and #3

Well, it's November 20th. And I'm behind. I have ten days left to get to 50k, and that means 2,000 words a day--which is what my goal was in the first place, but that didn't happen. I hit a wall for a little while, stuck on a chapter that I had to fix before I could move on. Something just wasn't right about the first part of the piece, and until I went back and made it tolerable, I couldn't keep writing. So that cost me some time and some words. Also, life distracts sometimes. Things happen. But I will win NaNoWriMo, I'm confident of this. And--call me crazy--but I think I'm gonna do another 50k in December.

Yes, I'm insane.

But this book is definitely going to be longer than 50k, and it may even be longer than 100k. Only time will tell. And I don't have that much time left, so back to work. No, what am I saying. Sleep first, then writing tomorrow. I'm not that insane.

As a side note, I totally got Johann Johannsson's new score for the movie The Theory of Everything, and it is fantastic and is now a part of my To Look Skyward playlist. Seriously, check out his stuff, he's an amazing composer. (Enjoy the soundtrack below.)
 

NaNoWriMo Week #1

Well, it's Sunday afternoon and I'm right on par for my NaNoWriMo novel, To Look Skyward. 15,000 or so words, and almost three chapters in (finishing up that third one today), and I'm excited for this story. Of course, my initial ideas were shifted around and rearranged in my head even with the first words written down, and I expect that to happen more and more as I get closer to the end, but I am still super pumped to write this book, and I am super pumped for people to read it!

For this project I decided to try something a little bit different on the critiquing end--I uploaded my chapters to Google Docs and shared the links with my writing group and on a writing forum I'm a member of, allowing them to comment while while reading to give me their honest reactions as they happen. It's been super helpful so far, and I'm definitely going to keep using it. From the initial feedback I've gotten on my first chapters, the book is going well, and though there is obviously some work to do on the editing side of things--for example, I didn't get the characterization of my main character quite right in the first chapter--but that is the nature of first drafts.

(Note: If you're at all interested in reading my novel as I write it and giving me feedback, send me a text, Facebook message, email, or direct message on Twitter and let me know, I'll get you the links. I'd really appreciate any suggestions you could give me.)

So far in November, I've been listening to a custom playlist I put together just for the writing of To Look Skyward, including music from Rhian Sheehan, Johann Johannsson, Hans Zimmer's Man of Steel score (which is the theme album for the world of TLS), and soon Hans Zimmer's Interstellar score. I just finished watching that fantastic movie, and though the soundtrack has yet to be released, it will fit perfectly with the rest of the music I've set aside for TLS, with beautiful piano, organ, and strings. Sorry, I'm a film score buff.

Well, I'm off to do some editing on the first scene to rectify with the prologue I just added, and then I'm off to write more. (Shh, don't tell anyone I'm editing my novel during NaNoWriMo. I'll get in trouble.)

Have a good day, and I'll give you another update in a week!

I'm Writing A Lot

Hello there! It's been a while since my last post, but for somewhat of a good reason: there wasn't a whole lot to talk about. But now there is! And so I will spill the beans.

Writing: During the two weeks my family was on vacation, I wrote a total of 11,068 words, which was fantastic! Obviously not as much as I could have gotten done, but a significant amount when compared to what I usually get done. In that time, I wrote a short story to its completion (Annoyance In The Air, which needs some revision, but should be finished soon), and another short story almost to its completion before I realized that I was going to have to scrap the whole thing because it was way too complicated to be a short story. I also got closer to completing Spend A Winter In Hell, but got stuck on the ending of that, and am going to run it by some people to get their input, and false started another short story that turned out to also be too complicated (this is me trying to put too many magic powers in a short story), but did provide a springboard for a very interesting character arc that I'll use later.

Since then, I've been doing some editing on short stories and my novella, while worldbuilding and outlining for my NaNoWriMo novel, To Look Skyward. I still have a lot of worldbuilding to do before I'll be completely satisfied with everything I need to know about the world, but tomorrow is when NaNoWriMo starts, so I'll have to be quick about that if I want it done before I have to start putting words to paper. All in all, though, I'm very satisfied with how the outlining process has been going. I've done more outlining than I usually do on a project (but recently it has all been shorter stories, so there's that), and I think the first half of the story is pretty solid in terms of story structure as a result. The last half, though... I still need to work on that. I have a feeling that once I hit that I'll either have a wonderful shot of inspiration and figure out the direction I need to go...or I'll need to brainstorm with my writer friends about where the heck I'm supposed to go with it.

Just as an aside, I also came up with a very interesting short story idea a couple days ago, as a result of one of the writing sprints for a NaNo Write-in. I didn't have time to go into it very fully, as I needed to focus on To Look Skyward, but I'm excited to write that in December sometime.

Music: Well, it looks like my plan to go to a recording studio in October has been postponed, because of crazy schedules on both sides, and so that's not going to happen until sometime later. But that's okay. I have recording equipment that suits my needs, and a good program to work with, so I can have fun with demos for now. I've been slowly but surely working on A Promise To Write's demo, but it still needs more work before I'll be satisfied with it. I did make an acoustic demo of my newest song, entitled "The Girl", and so there's that. I really like this song, so hopefully soon I'll release it somewhere. I also have the opportunity to play one of my original songs (with the rest of the worship band accompanying me) at my church this Sunday, so that's exciting. I'll be playing Somebody Has To Start, which is one of my favorites that I've written.

I'm planning on recording a rather special song in early December (after the craziness of NaNoWriMo dies down), but it's a secret as to what it's ultimate goal is, so I will not say anything more.

Reading: If you're at all interested in what I'm reading right now, you can follow me on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/Xcarthan12 -- as of now I'm reading through a bunch of different books, some non-fiction, but mostly fiction. Part of that is my annual reread of the Belgariad and the Malloreon series by David Eddings, ten books of absolute awesomeness that formed a significant portion of my childhood.

Listening: So, the other day, I fell in love with a New Zealander composer named Rhian Sheehan. You should go check out his music. Right now. It's so beautiful. http://rhiansheehan.bandcamp.com/

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Well, that's about all, so I'll sign off. Hopefully this is interesting to you in some way.

The Next (Late) Update

Sorry about the lateness of this post. Well, I would be sorry if anyone ever read this, but whatever. Nothing too crazy has been going on in my life, internet. Just working, making music, and writing fiction. Crazy thing happened, though: my family just left on a two week vacation without me. This is the first time they've done that in...well, ever. So, right now I'm sitting in the living room by myself, after binge watching Legend of Korra, and I'm a little lonely. You don't realize how much you miss talking to your family about things until they're literally not able to talk to you about things.

So, for two weeks, I'm going to be working, writing, making music, and doing the chemistry I should have been doing the last three weeks of September. Hopefully I'll make some progress in all of those areas.

Writing: Clock Strikes Death is finally being read by some critiquers (took long enough) and so I should have some feedback on it soon. Also, I finished To Look Skyward, though it didn't necesarrily turn out how I hoped, and only fueled the fire for a project of mine that's beginning into the outline stage: my NaNoWriMo novel. I decided to write it in the same world as was To Look Skyward, and have those characters be a part of that story. To be honest, since I'm never going to use that short story for anything other than fuel for that story's fire, and I like the title To Look Skyward so much, I'm probably just going to steal that name for the NaNoWriMo novel and scrap TLS Prime entirely. Oh, I've also been in the process of writing a few other short stories that should be finished soon that I'm very excited about, and once I get enough of those, I'll probably release a short little anthology on NoiseTrade (though I'll need to get them proofread and polished up first).

Music: Well, I did actually put one of my songs on YouTube, one I wrote for one of my best friends, Miranda Steiner, for her birthday. You can find that below. (Yes, I know there's buzzing. I don't know what caused it, and it's gone now, so I didn't bother re-recording the entire song). I'm now working on a demo for what is probably my favorite song I've ever written: A Promise To Write. I really like the way it's coming along, and I'm going to get to work on it more tomorrow.

Chemistry: Eh, you don't need to know how far behind I am on that.

Well, that's about all for now, except for one last thing. If you've ever heard of John Maxwell, you'll know what I'm about to talk about. If you haven't, you should, because his speaking is incredible and very inspirational. Well, anyway, he says that everyone should have a Rule of Five. Five things you do every day that will make you successful in what you want to be in life. John's Rule of Five is Think, Ask Questions, Read, File, and Write (those may or may not be in the right order, and there may or may not be an actual right order at all). He challenges others to find their own personal Rule of Five, and to stick with it every day.

This is my personal Rule of Five:

1. Communicate (with God, through prayer and the reading of His Word, and with those that I love).
2. Read (fill myself up with stories, life-lessons, and ideas)
3. Think (think about deep life issues, or story ideas, or the future)
4. Sing (whether with my voice, or with instruments, just create music)
5. Write (whether it be song lyrics, non-fiction, a letter to someone I love, or stories)

Obviously, there are a lot of other important things to do during a day, but those I will undoubtedly do because I have to in life. My Rule of Five is a reminder to me to do important things that I may forget to do, but are also vitally important. As of today, I will be doing these five things every day. Or, at least, I will try very hard to. I want to try, at the very minimum, to do it every day for a year. I've been more or less consistently writing lately, but I could stand to do that better as well, and my other four things.

So, wish me luck. I'm off to change the world, one word at a time.

I Am Currently Writing... Clock Strikes Death

Hello there, internet world. Yes, I know I said this was being resurrected and then proceeded not to write anything for weeks. I'm forgetful like that. Anyway, I thought I'd actually write something now, so yeah! That's something, at least. 

For the past few months I've been working on a novella entitled "Clock Strikes Death". As it stands right now, it's about 13,000 words, but it should be somewhere around 18,000-20,000 when it's completed. I haven't been spending nearly enough time as I wanted to writing it (or as much time as should have, for that matter), but it's almost finished now, and I can see the finish line. My plan is to finish the first draft by the end of this week, and then put it aside next week as I head off on the Student Leader Camping Trip. I have another short story idea that I brainstormed with Trevor Sigmund, one of my close friends, that I want to (hopefully) write while I'm there. That should be considerably shorter, however, and I have the entire story pretty heavily outlined in my head, unlike what is usually the case with stories I write. 

After I come back from that trip, I'll give Clock Strikes Death to some alpha readers, get some input back, and then go into a second draft of that story, which will tackle the several structural problems I know exist in the narrative, and probably a few I didn't. After that, I'll give it to beta readers, who will give me final input on whatever else needs to be fixed, and then it should mostly be done. Most of my prose is pretty clean, so after maybe one or two language/prose/dialogue passes after that, I'll probably put it up on Noisetrade, and then I'll start submitting it to some different markets. I hear TOR has a new novella imprint... 

*laugh silently at myself* In your dreams, kid, in your dreams.

For those who don't know, Clock Strikes Death is part of the setting I like to call, "Clockwork Cowboy", which is part of the 374th Cycle mega-setting in which all of my fantasy books (and the ones that my brother Connor, Trevor, and my friend David will eventually write, hint, hint, nudge, nudge) take place. I say Clockwork Cowboy, but that's kind of a silly way of explaining the setting. It is basically a fantasy western/clockpunk setting, which may also seem silly, but is in actuality a fantasy borrowing elements from westerns and incorporating fantastical clockwork-based technology. While writing it, I also realized it had a lot more grimdark-iness than I originally thought it would have, and subsequently scrapped the theme album I had selected for it, Hans Zimmer's score for The Lone Ranger. 

Also, for those who didn't know, I select theme albums for almost everything I write, film scores that capture the mood I want for that book/world. I still haven't really decided on another one for the Clockwork Cowboy setting, but I do enjoy The Shawshank Redemption, so that may end up being the theme album.

Anyway, I should really get back to Clock Strikes Death, since I only have until Saturday to finish it, and I have plenty of other things to get done this week. Before I go, I will leave you with a little tease of the novella:

                                                                                                                                                

A ringing in Declan's ears chimed the hour. Nine o'clock. Time to die.

He jolted upright in his cot, tense, waiting for the inevitable sound of booted feet come to drag him away to Eternity. All was silent, however, save the muted tick, tock of his heart. The prison bars before him were a dark, unfriendly grey that seemed to grin at him like the teeth of an arrowbelly. His cell was cramped and freezing, the fireplace just outside its iron door reduced to ashes and offering nothing in the way of warmth. Just like the one other time he had been unfortunate enough to get himself locked away in one of these bunker-prisons. Declan strained to hear anything that would signal that someone was coming for him. He waited for a minute, then two, then five. A half an hour passed as he listened to the muffled ticking of the second hand, and still no one arrived.

Declan frowned, still laying on his cot. He hadn't seen any human guards since he had been thrown into this dark pit of a prison, and only once had he seen any clockwork--a Sentinel, who had silently performed its duty of giving him a plate of dried rations and a tin cup full of water, and then left, emotionless face haunting as always. He had always hated those cold, emotionless monsters.

Where was everyone? Declan stood to his feet and made his way to the iron bars, holding them tightly with calloused hands. He wore nothing but the underclothes he had been wearing the night before--dark grey shirt and trousers that reeked of sweat. Had they decided to just leave him down here to starve? Ironically, that would be a more certain fate than a bullet to the head, at this point. The only chance he had was in the journey from here to the figurative gallows. He had one more trick up his sleeve-literally-but it relied on the hallway just outside the room adjacent to his cell. If he could just get out there…

Declan cursed himself--not for the first time since his imprisonment--for not seeing the ventilation shaft on the way in until it was too late. If his jailor had fumbled for just a moment longer with his keys, he might not be in this mess right now. He would be halfway to Bunnell Creek, laughing at the stupidity of lawmen.

Well, he wasn't laughing now. If no one came to get him, he was dead. Declan couldn't think of a logical reason why they wouldn't come, but he couldn't help worrying nonetheless. He had bad luck. Blasted horrible luck, at that. Come on…you want to see me suffer, right, Biggs? I know you do. Don't just leave me here; you want to see my face when I die. He couldn't believe he was hoping for someone to try and kill him--it just didn't seem right--but that was the only thing that would save him now.

That ventilation shaft…that was the key. Declan had one Card left, his most valuable. He had saved it for years, never wanting to use it, for fear he would never find another one. They only made that kind of clockwork in Enlord City, and they were one of the most powerful types. Luckily, the guards hadn't taken his boots. They'd checked inside, of course--to make sure he didn't have a hidden weapon of some sort. But almost no one expected a boot to have a secret compartment like his did, holding an item so rare and valuable, men would kill a hundred times over to get their hands on it.

Declan liked to be prepared, even in situations that were out of his control. Especially in situations that were out of his control.

Blessedly, footsteps sounded in the hallway moments later, coming with it a hope of escape. It wasn't the metallic clank of a clockwork, but the booted steps of a man. They were coming to get him. Finally.

Declan reviewed the plan of escape in his mind as the sound grew closer. He could get out of this, if he was clever. The prison was very secure, that much was true, buried in the earth a hundred feet down, but it had one weakness. It turned out that there wasn't much air down in the bowels of Orlam, and so you needed to have some sort of ventilation system to filter air through the tunnels, or else anything stuck down here would suffocate. Not the clockwork, of course, they didn't need air, but anything living. A prisoner lucky enough to get inside that ventilation system could, potentially, make their way to the surface and escape. The only problem was that the shafts used to filter the air were entirely vertical, and a hundred feet high. That meant, despite the route to freedom built into the design, no one had ever successfully made it out alive.

Until today.

                                                                                                                                            

Oh, and here's a fake cover I made for it the other day. I obviously can't use this on Noisetrade because...it's someone else's art. But hey, it perfectly gets the theme across, so here you go:

And here is the theme song of the novella. Now that I think about it, Shawshank Redemption is definitely the theme album.

Writing and Representation

For people wondering why I am intensely interested in writing fantasy (as you can probably tell from just reading a few of these blog posts), here are some clarifications.

Well, to put it simply, I love it. Fantasy is my favorite genre of fiction, and has been for a long, long time now. I read fantasy almost constantly, and enjoy the possibilities and intricacies of the genre immensely.

For those of you who don't know, what my friends and I have done is created a fantasy universe with an overarching story in which to separately write different books in said universe. We all have our separate novels and series' planned, all set in the same galaxy and connecting to the larger story.

And we have magic. Contrary to popular belief, magic in fiction is not evil. Obviously, magic in the real world is a bad thing, because God expressly forbids it--and because there are demons behind it. But "magic" in the fantasy setting we've created (and almost every fantasy setting ever created) is simply a way of having the characters do things that normal people can't do. It isn't evil--it's simply a part of their world.

Now, there are demons in the setting as well. They aren't really demons in the real sense of the word, rather a race of beings that was corrupted by the main baddie of the universe, a guy we named Chaos. But these demons represent the real thing, and are an active and dangerous part of the universe, tempting and corrupting people. It is established very early on that these demons are evil, and the powers they give people are also evil.

The premise of the story is a battle between Good and Evil. The fine details of the plot have yet to be put in stone, but the basic story revolves around this battle. "God", as in the real God that is the Creator of our universe, is not in this galaxy (at least, I don't think so, we haven't actually ironed out the details yet), but we have set up our books to be allegories (though very subtle ones) about different spiritual truths and moral problems.

For example, one of the worlds in the galaxy has a type of magic that revolves around truth and lies. The basis of the novel written on that world is going to be focused on the morality of truth. My own series, The Proanadi, is built to be a representation of the journey of redemption, along with a lot of other spiritual truths about friendship, revenge, and other things.

As a Christian, I understand that the only thing that really matters in this world is serving Jesus, serving others, and telling others about Jesus. And I want to do this by writing books. I want to give people good entertainment, but get them thinking about spiritual truths and moral issues, as well as allegories that represent things about Jesus and other spiritual things. And I want to write fiction in which the junk that permeates our society now is nonexistent. I want to show people that you can write books without swearing and sex scenes. And that it will actually be better without it.

But that's just me.

History, Mythology, and Maps

I know I haven't updated this in forever, but that's mostly been because I've been involved in other writing--and heavily involved at that. As I near the finish of the first part of The Proanadi, I realized that I needed to really nail down the history and mythology of the races and kingdoms involved. There were plenty of sections when I hinted at both events in the past and various gods, but most of that, I admit, was made up on the spot, and all of it wasn't very well thought out.

So for the past few weeks I've been really digging into the past and the religion of the kingdoms that take a major role in The Proanadi, and what I've found is pretty cool. For one, I made a comprehensive timeline spanning from the beginning of civilization as the world knew it to the present day--well, more like ten comprehensive timelines, each from a different kingdom's viewpoint. I'll put them together soon, with all of the events of the nations in one place.

Second, I made the various pantheons of deities that each race pays homage to. The way gods work in the world of The Proanadi is similar to the way Tolkien's world of Middle Earth and the Undying Lands works. A higher power created the gods and set them in the world as stewards, each watching over a particular aspect or function in the world. In the misty past of Serragon, the world on which The Proanadi takes place, groups of stewards who were like-minded gathered together and made races that also shared their mindset. These races split into groups themselves, and the stewards split with them, until a few dozen separate groups of cultures, with their own gods, had developed.

Now that I had this foundation in mind, the things I wrote in my novel had meaning. The things the characters were talking about had depth, and the gods that they spoke of had history and a foundation in the culture of the kingdom. It was pretty cool.

Not only that, but I've also updated my world map--extensively. Originally, the two areas where the book takes place in (Torius/Azatharia for Nimlar, Daelis, and Striker; and Umhati for Poddle, Daegoth, and Tahlavel) were miles and miles apart. I had a big problem trying to figure out a way to get them going towards the same place.

But a month or two ago, I had an idea. I started a hotseat game of Civilization V, in which every civilization represented one from my story. The map that was generated--with a little tweaking--was absolutely perfect. It landed the Crossroad Kingdoms just north of Umhati--solving one problem--and gave me great locations to set the various nations in.

Since then the world has really come alive with history, mythology, sociology, and geography. And I love it. This is one of my great passions--creating a race's culture and constructed their past. I find it immensely satisfying to build the backstory for a story's world, almost as much as I like writing the story itself.

Well, that's my update. Sorry that there's nothing mind-bogglingly monumental in this post--I'll try to think of something a little bit more stupendous for next time.

Thanks, and good reading!

The Rules of Creation

My brother Connor, my best friend Trevor, and I got together one day almost a year ago now and decided to make a world. We started talking about this world, who would live in it, what it would be like, and how we could make it unique. With a random idea and a roll on a chart (and a lot of refining), we thought up the world that would be the backdrop for the story known as The Rules of Creation.

The world operates on the premise that a powerful being called the Creator roams the universe, creating worlds and populating them with diverse life and intricate designs. He creates these worlds with an incredibly powerful substance: his own blood. Using this "Kingsblood", which, whimsically, has been referred to as "creative juices", the Creator made the tapestries and art of the universe, making each planet with unique and utterly amazing lifeforms that functioned perfectly in their chosen world and environments. When he was done creating the worlds, the excess Kingsblood would be "dried up" and become the lava which resides in the worlds' cores.

Where the world of The Rules of Creation comes in is here: the Creator had started on another world, forming it with his blood, when something happened. It is not specified what event took place, but whatever occurred, the process of creation was interfered with, leaving a half-formed blob literally seething with excess Kingsblood.

That's where the epicness begins.

It turns out that, left unchecked, Kingsblood takes on a life of it's own, and begins to create independently of it's designer. In the initial years after the planet's birth and subsequent forming and shaping, great sprays of Kingsblood rocked the world, creating plants, animals, and sentient beings in amazing complexity.

After thousands of years of turmoil and chaos, something happened--something still unknown--which changed the world and considerably diminished the amount of Kingsblood activity over the face of the earth. Kingsblood was still a very essential part of the world, however, and lay across the world in lakes, bubbling ponds, and--still active in some cases--geysers and volcanoes.

The world began to realize that Kingsblood could be harvested--and controlled--and since then, the nations haven't been the same. A great nation of humans, luckily located near one of the greatest areas for the harvesting of Kingsblood has shaped their kingdom to revolve around this powerful substance: harvesting and selling it in mass quantities, capturing and selling new creations as geysers make them, and studying and researching the liquid, eventually creating a whole science out of it.

About this time, one of the greatest scientists ever to walk the face of the earth wrote a book that would help all of the sentient races of the world understand Kingsblood: this book was named The Rules of Creation. This tome compiled a list of circumstances, conditions, and rules that defined how things were created using Kingsblood. Even though the chaotic forces of Kingsblood lacked the Creator to guide their design, the functionality of the creations were obvious and complex, and always seemed to fit their environment. In other words, a creation was always fully functional, able to survive their immediate extremities, and had features that specifically benefited them.

What was created was directly related to the amount of Kingsblood that was released, and the velocity in which it hit a surface (for to create something, Kingsblood had to have sufficient time to activate under the effects of oxygen, and had to hit something with enough force). How much Kingsblood there was determined either how many creations were made and/or how big they were. The velocity determined the complexity of the creation.

What it hit also had effects: if Kingsblood hits a desert for instance, the creation is specifically designed for that environment. If it happens in water, the creation is designed for aquatic behavior, whether it be fresh or salt. And all this it does instantaneously. Numerous and amazing creations abound in the world, and all are specifically suited for their terrains and have been designed for functionality.

It is in this world that our story begins...

• The balancing force that has kept the Kingsblood checked for centuries now is suddenly disrupted, and the earth begins to careen towards how it was in the years of chaos following it's birth. Since the people that inhabit the world didn't know what kept it balanced in the first place, they have no way to restore it, and as such are helpless to stop the oncoming torrent of destruction... er, creation.
• A mysterious singular sentient has appeared in a recent geyser blast of Kingsblood, shocking amvasologists (scientists studying the substance) in the region. This person appeared in a torrent that created a number of other creatures all similar, except for him, the black sheep of the bunch. Now this goes against everything the world knows of Kingsblood, since anything that is created in a particular blast is always related somehow, and there is rarely ever a singular person made, since the Rules of Creation state that the thing that is created has to be able to reproduce in some way.
• A particularly bright scientist and scholar of many subjects (AKA our hero), gets his hands on said mysterious stranger, and begins to study the strangely mute individual, trying to learn more about this odd occurrence. He is confronted with other rival scholars and unscrupulous businessmen, all trying to get their hands on the individual, for their own selfish reasons.
• This individual (as the reader learns from scenes with him as the viewpoint character), is amnesiac--he has no idea who he is, what he can do, and how to go about in this world. Which is another oddity--created beings are always aware of what they can do and how to survive (and how to communicate, at least in their own tongue), per the Rules of Creation. This individual seems to learn extraordinarily quickly however, learning the local language just by observing the young scholar who is studying him, a fact which even he does not understand.
• As the mystery deepens, the scholar and the strange being are dragged into the situation involving the disintegration of the balancing force that checked the King's Blood, and learn why it is happening, and how to stop it. 

There is more--much more--but I cannot reveal it, lest it ruin the book for you. But those are the main points. I hope you enjoyed reading the idea, and I hope you like it well enough to read it when we finish writing it (which will take a while, because of the epic scope of the story and the world).

The Nine Disciplines

I've been agonizing about not having a very good magic system for my novels, but a few month ago, that finally changed. Below is a set of guidelines and lists for my magic system, known as the Nine Disciplines. This is the magic system I am using for my series, The Proanadi, as well as the world in which the scene Prisoner is set in. If you read closely, you can figure out how Alaeph can do what he does.

The way it works is thus: any known magic-user has access to one, several, or all of these Disciplines. All "magic" as people know it derives itself ultimately from the Nine Disciplines. Where magic-users differ is WHERE they get their power from--their power source. There can also be differences in areas of focus, and ways that they use the different disciplines (because, the possibilities within the Disciplines are almost unlimited).

Here are the Nine Disciplines below, grouped as they would be commonly, with three groups of three:

The Nine Disciplines

Material

1 Physical (change in physical matter)

2 Sensory (change in perception)

3 Elemental (manipulation of the elements)

Ultramaterial

1 Influential (change in feeling)

2 Intellectual (change in thought)

3 Essential (manipulation of life energies)

Supernal

1 Continuous (disruptions in space or time)

2 Creative (creation of new energy or matter)

3 Potential (manipulation of force)

Examples of something being done with each Discipline below:

Physical: Enhances your (or another's) strength

Sensory: Tricking another individual's perceptions, making you effectively invisible

Elemental: Shooting fire from your hands

Influential: Providing a morale boost to your comrades

Intellectual: Tampering with someone's memory

Essential: Bringing someone back to life

Continuous: Teleportation (space) or slowing time (time)

Creative: Creating food and water out of nothing

Potential: Throwing up a wall of pure force

Now, there are many different limitations and tricks associated with each Discipline, and points where they overlap, but different Disciplines work better in different situations. Where the line is drawn between the different types of magic-users in the world comes from one major thing (though there are other, less important differences): Power Source. Where do they derive their power from?

Below is a list of some magic-users and their power sources:

Wizards – Power through learning (words and rituals that channel the energy)

Clerics – Power through prayer*

Sorcerers – Power through lineage (having some form of magical creature’s blood in your DNA)

Favored Soul – Power through divine connection*

Dragosamns – Power through dragon totems (similar to Stewardic power)**

Roshi – Power through Chaos**

Druids – Power through natural connection and energy

Talir-Knights – Power through one’s own energy

Demons – Power through destruction (breaking down of matter or energy)

* Both Clerics and Favored Souls gain their ultimate power from the Stewards. Only the means are different.

** Although both Roshi and Dragosamns gain their abilities through their dragon blood, their actual power sources come from outside their bloodline, unlike sorcerers.

Different ways of organizing the same categories of energy are found below:

Clerical Blessings

Earthly Blessings

1 Physical (Blessing of the Flesh)

2 Sensory (Blessing of the Eyes)

3 Influential (Blessing of the Heart)

4 Intellectual (Blessing of the Mind)

Holy Blessings

1 Elemental (Blessing of the Burning Blood)

2 Essential (Blessing of the Living Blood)

3 Potential (Blessing of the Compelling Blood)

Heavenly Blessings

1 Continuous (Blessing of the Soaring Soul/Eternal Soul)

2 Creative (Blessing of the Inceptive Soul)

Dragosamn Totems

Physical (Totem of Substance)

Sensory (Totem of Image)

Elemental (Totem of [Insert Element Name Here])

Influential (Totem of Presence/Inspiration)

Intellectual (Totem of Reason)

Essential (Totem of Blood)

Continuous (Totem of Foresight/Passage/Intervention)

Creative (Totem of Origin)

Potential (Totem of Impact)

That is the extent of it, but there is much more in the way of details to be ironed out with this system. Thanks for reading, and I hope you liked it!

Prisoner

Today I sat down to write. But I wasn't sure what to write. So many ideas were running through my head, but none of them were ready to be worked on yet. So I tried something I hadn't done in a while--I wrote something completely random.

A website I like, Chaoticshiny.com, is filled with random generators for writing and role-playing games. One specific generator is a writing exercise generator. It gives you something random to write about, whether it be "Write for at least 250 words about a purchase, a rodent, and a payment." or "Write for at least two minutes about a heroic deed, a thug, and a businessman."

With no thought beforehand, I ran the generator, and came up with: "Write for at least five minutes about a prison and a bottle. Focus on creating one compelling character." And so I wrote a random scene, set in the world of my trilogy, the Proanadi. But in a completely distant section of the world that I hadn't worked on much before--an elven nation in the east with a pseudo-Asian culture, Peraian.

And that is where Alaeph and Hatrex were born. Here is the full scene, at least, as much as I've written so far.

Prisoner

Alaeph sat up in his cell, head thumping from a hangover. He pressed a hand to his temple and sighed, wondering how he had gotten here. The iron bars of the cell door were rusted, only barely hanging on their hinges, and the floor of the small, cramped chamber was incredibly dirty. Alaeph cringed, taking his hand away from the side of his head. As he feared, it was covered in a thick layer of grime.

Lovely, the Perenari thought, wiping the hand on his silk trousers. Another pair of pants soiled. At least this time it’s not directly my fault.

“You’ve made quite a mess of yourself,” a voice said from outside the cell. The owner was another elf wearing a cotton uniform, a gold badge pinned to the front. Some sort of prison guard? The clothing is a bit too nice, though…

Alaeph ignored him and shook out his fatigue, getting to his feet and looking around. Pale light filtered in from a small barred window at the corner of the room, and though it only slightly illuminated the tiny chamber, it was like fire to Alaeph’s sensitive eyes.

”You are a matter of public record, my friend,” the guard continued, taking a drink from a cup. Alaeph’s eyes adjusted to the light, and he saw clearly now that the man sat at a wood table a few feet away from the door of the cell, in the corner of the chamber beyond the iron bars. “You’ve been arrested seventeen times in the last six months. Three of those times for disturbing the peace, seven for thievery, three for resisting arrest, and the other four for public indecency.”

“I was under extraneous circumstances,” Alaeph said off-handedly, squinting at the guard as his eyes tried to fight through the stabbing pain that the light caused. “Who are you, again?”

“My name is Hatrex,” the guard said, taking another drink from his cup. “I'm the jamini of the city you just shocked so profoundly.”

Of course, Alaeph thought. That explains the badge.

“Why are you here, Hatrex?” Alaeph asked, his curiosity heightened suddenly. “Couldn’t a less important man be sent to coddle me while I rot in this cell?”

“You know why I’m here,” Hatrex said, smiling. “I really don’t think I have to mention the sixteen times you’ve broken out of prison under the noses of less important men.”

Alaeph didn’t return the jamini’s smile. “You won’t be able to stop me. No one else has, and I don’t plan on living out the rest of my life in a filthy hole in the ground.”

“We’ll see about that, my little magician,” Hatrex said. Alaeph gave him a look, and the jamini smiled again. “Yes, I know about your little secret.”

“You don’t know the half of it, lawman,” Alaeph retorted, turning away. The elf sat deliberately on the other side of the cell, facing away from the man. “We’ll see how important you really are in a few moments.”

Alaeph crossed his legs, concentrating. He cleared his mind and brought the force of his will to bear, channeling the energy around him, and causing it to flow into the Continuous Discipline.

And then, Alaeph stopped time.

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Who is Alaeph, and how is he capable of stopping time itself? How did he commit the crimes he did, and for what reason? Who exactly is Hatrex?

I have no idea. But I'm hoping, as I write a little more of this, I will start to understand it myself. This is pretty short, and mostly improvised, just making it up as I went along, but I feel there is a story here--something bigger that I have yet to unravel.

We'll see where this goes, and if I go anywhere with it. But that's all for now--thanks for reading this!

Note: A jamini is just a word that sounded exotic that I used for a profession that is basically a sheriff. The role a jamini plays might change as I figure this budding story out, but that's the basis of it.

The Lamb (Preconception)

Tonight at youth group, my dad began teaching on a topic that is going to take us a few weeks to cover--a subject that is of vital importance... really, of the utmost importance.

Jesus Christ, dying on the cross, for the sins of the world.

Sermons cover everything, from divorce to creation to the end times, but the singular most important aspect of Christianity, and the aspect that all sermons should point to, is Jesus, and the sacrifice he made.

I like writing. It's something I'm good at and passionate about. As I listened to my dad teach on what happened in Gethsemane and the events leading up to Jesus' crucifixion, I began to get an idea. What if I wrote a historical short story that detailed the events before, during, and after the death of Jesus? This was something I really wanted to do--something I could praise God with.

I had a similar idea near Christmas, to write a short scene from the viewpoint of John the Baptist, as he set off to begin the ministry God had called him to. It was brief, but interesting--at least, it was to me as I wrote it. I had always been thinking about doing something like this--a novel or the like of historical narrative that brought the Bible to life in a story form. There are amazing events in the Bible, but unfortunately, it only gives us a "telling" of the story, not a "showing". Hopefully, in the next few months, I can "show" an interpretation of the Bible's narrative. And hopefully you like it.

For right now, I'm going to leave you with the short scene I wrote for Christmas, to give you a feel for what I'd like to do--thanks!

He Is Coming

John stood there, overlooking the town of Bethlehem.

He knew what had happened there, almost thirty years ago now, though he had been little more than an infant when it had occurred. He had heard the stories, though--from his mother and father--about his cousin Mary and her husband, Joseph. He had heard of the night when Mary's baby had been born, and the newlywed mother had laid her offspring in a manger, swaddled in cloth. He had listened to the story of the shepherds, who had been told by an angel of the Lord of the infant's birth in Bethlehem.

And now, finally, John came to the place where God had been born among men.

He had been meaning to come to see the place for some time, but it had only been now, on his way to the Jordan River, when he'd finally gotten around to it. It was an unassuming town, though it had been the home of King David about a thousand years ago. John stared across the land, trying to imagine in his mind the star that had appeared over the city, guiding the magi to the place where the child lived.

What a sight that would have been, John thought, squinting as the desert sun glared down at him from the sky.

John--who would come to be known as John the Baptist--sighed, and started off again towards the Jordan, his spirit aflame with anticipation for what would soon come to this land. He would've liked to visit Bethlehem, and possibly see if he could find the house where Joseph and his wife had stayed, but there was no time for that now. There was too much to be done, and John had been given the task of doing it. He had to prepare the way for the Messiah's arrival, and that would start with preparing men's' hearts first.

"He is coming," he whispered to himself as he took one last look at the lonely town of Bethlehem, and then set off towards the Jordan River, and his ministry.

He is coming.

The Proanadi

As some of you may know, I am in the process of writing an epic fantasy (swords, magic, armies, dragons...  you know, the works) trilogy entitled The Proanadi. I've actually been in that process for over a year now, but I've only gotten about a hundred pages done--mostly because I've only seriously buckled down and began plugging away at it for a few months now. The funny thing is, that hundred pages, sixty-two thousand words, and eleven chapters is only Part 1 (and that part isn't even finished yet!) of an enormous work that is going to take years to complete.

The story is based off the adventures my friends and I played through in a role-playing game, albeit loosely. There are six prominent characters (bumped up to eight in the second book), each played by one of my good friends in our game. The plot has changed drastically since I first decided that I wanted to write a book (now trilogy) detailing the characters, places, and events that occurred in our collective storytelling effort--so drastically, in fact, that the world of our game is vastly different in every way from the world I've begun to create for The Proanadi. 

For those of you who didn't know I was writing a book, and haven't read anything I've written yet, never fear! As soon as I finish and then polish up the first part of the first book, known by the working title Incipient, I'm going to try to get it to anyone who is interested. If you end up reading it, I hope you enjoy it! I've put some serious blood, sweat, tears, and nausea behind those hundred or so pages. 

And for those of you who are interested in it now, here's a brief synopsis for you to hang on to:

A horror that the planet has never known corrupts all.

Those that protected the world are dead, their blood spilled at the hands of men who once shared their convictions. The land is ravaged by war, hunger, plague, death, as it eats itself from the inside out. First, the hearts of men, then the souls of those once noble are devoured. Even the heroes now cower at the darkness that lies at the threshold of the meager light that remains. 

The sins of the fathers break the lives of the sons.

Ordinary men, their blood fating them to become saviors, try to fight a force they cannot begin to understand. A swordsmith has everything taken away from him. A rebel desperately tries to regain his usurped throne. A monster stained with his misdeeds sinks further into despair. 

 A single drop of redemption falls into an ocean of blood. 

Secrets that none possess reveal the past, a stained history of nobility intertwined with horrible sins. The world stands on the brink, awaiting those that would decide its fate, for good or ill. A creature with the blood of a dragon is king and god. A merchant betrayed faces his curse. A man with no memories is torn by his mistakes. 

The ground underfoot begins to crumble.

Yes, I know that's a little vague, but it's actually quite simple. Just reading the first part allows you to understand fully this little synopsis. Well, that's all for now--I'll be updating the blog with news of how the writing is going, as well as some different snippets of scenes and writing I've done for this or other works of mine. I know what you're thinking: "Wait, he's writing other books, too?" Yes, yes I am. None of my other ideas are in any way as fleshed out as this one, but I do have plenty of other novels in the works, including a series about superheroes, and an enormous collective novel (another epic fantasy work, though much more unique) written by some of my friends and I .

All right, that's about it. Thanks for reading these ramblings (unless you just skimmed this and saw the bottom line, then shame on you!)

The Core of All Thought

The purpose of this blog is twofold: 

1. To allow me to write down my thoughts in a journal-esque manner, and to do so much quicker than writing with pen and paper.
2. To be a place to practice writing in its various forms--whether it be about spiritual concepts, stuff going on in the world, the various universes that are contained within my mind (different book ideas, magic systems, and settings), or just about writing itself.

I'm always thinking about things, sometimes to distraction. My parents will tell you this--I often have to return to them two or three times to be reminded of exactly what it was they just told me to do. Although this is obviously not a good thing sometimes, especially when I forget something important, it's really just the way I am. A thinker.

This translates directly into writing. A quote from my favorite author, David Eddings, explains this: "Words are the core of all thought. Without words, there is no thought." Words, at their very essence, are the building blocks of thoughts, ideas, and dreams. With words we capture concepts and whole worlds in the net of our minds. This is how I express myself--through words.

This leads me to the meaning behind the name of this blog. A story does indeed live in all of us, though it is not always told with only words. Even though at their essence, stories are crafted with the building blocks known as words, they are not always expressed with them.

Everyone has a story to tell. And I'm not just saying that everyone is going to or should be a writer--not at all. Rather, I'm saying that everyone has a journey, or a dream, to share or discover.

Once again, I am a thinker. This might sound a little weird, but I tend to think of everything in the terms of stories, even going so far as to try to contemplate the effects of each minor event that occurs. When you come right down to it, everything is made up of stories. Say you are in line at a fast food place. There is someone in front of you. This person might seem ordinary, mundane, just a minor character in your own journey. Though, in your story, they are, the role they play in their own life is incredibly important--in that story, they are the main character. The story revolves around them.

This thought is at once simple and yet immensely vast: everyone has their own personal story. Everything might seem to revolve around you, because to you, it seems as if you are the main character. But everyone else is too. As this thought starts to sink in, think about how that should affect your view of life. Everyone is going through their own problems, many of which are much harder than your own. It kind of puts things in perspective, doesn't it? What seems so important to you is only a background event to everyone else, and an occurrence that is monumental to that person in line at the fast food restaurant, you don't even give a second glance.

Hmm... that was a tangent. I can already tell that this blog is going to be full of them, but that thought has been nagging at me for a while now... Back to my point, however. Everyone has a journey, or a dream. They are different for each person, and some have both.

A journey is a story within your own life--an experience, good or bad, that changes who you are and where you are going. This is primarily based on reality. Though a person might write about their life experiences later, it doesn't always happen. Many people's personal stories never get "out there". But the story remains, and for those who take the time to learn from it, they can find much of value in each and every person's personal journey.

A dream isn't based on reality, and falls within the realm of writers, artists, and other people who spend far too much time doing what the name implies--dreaming. J.R.R. Tolkien's world of Middle-Earth, and the stories told within, are prime examples of this. This was Tolkien's dream--the story he told, the story that made a mark on the world.

Just as every thought is based on words, every dream is based on stories. The painter is telling a story as he creates an image. A musician is telling a story as he writes a song. A writer is telling a story as he pens the words that will become a part of the library of history.

This is what I wish, first and foremost, to do.

I want to serve my God and Savior, and see my story unfold, page by page, as I follow in His steps. I want my journey to be revolved around Him--and in that, I will see a great masterpiece be uncovered.

I also want to dream. And I want to make that dream into something great. Whether this ends up being with music, words, or both, only time will tell, but a story lives in all of us.

Now is the time to tell that story.